Falling in Mid-Air
by Krista Hendrix
Summary: (AU - monsters/angels/demons/etc coexist with humans). After having ripped out eir Grace, Samandriel tries to live a normal human life. Ey meet Adam for a second time while working at a coffee shop. Through bonding and the sharing of emotional trauma, they realize that there aren't many other people in their lives nearly as fucked up as they are.
1. Prologue

_0._

Let me say something about falling: _it freaking hurts._ Someone might say, "Well, yeah, obviously it hurts." But no one truly understands the full extent of the pain until they've completely ripped out their grace. The pain is excruciating. It feels like all two-hundred-six bones in your body are breaking one after another in three-second intervals. And then right when that last bone breaks and you think it's almost over, it starts again. And again. And again.

But I would endure all of that pain for the rest of my life if it meant living as a human, if it meant being able to see _him_.

I guess it would be best to start from the beginning.


	2. Chapter 1

_1._

"Samandriel?" came the questioned remark. Dark eyes stared up at me, addressing me in a hostile behavior as I nodded my head in clarity. Eyebrows raised and the older man shrugged his shoulders before he scanned the rest of my application.

I drummed my fingers along my thigh in anticipation, eyes wandering around the small office. Two picture frames were set out neatly on the desk in front of me; pictures of what I had assumed were his family members. A young girl and a woman who appeared to be a few years younger than him.

My eyes found the nametag pinned on his breast pocket once again. _Crowley._ I wondered why he had the audacity to question me on my name when his wasn't such a common one either. The sound of his mouth opening drew my attention back to his face. "Have you ever killed anyone?"

"N—no! What kind of question is that?" I exclaimed.

"Your name isn't a new one. I've heard of you. The great and trustworthy Samandriel. The amazing Samandriel. The all-mighty Samandriel, protector of the good," he drawled out sarcastically.

"I don't think anyone's ever actually called me that," I said. He rolled his eyes and stared back down at the application for a moment before meeting my gaze once again.

"You're boring, but I'm low on staff. You can start now."

"Now? Like, right now? I wasn't prepared to start so early," I told him honestly.

"Does it look like care?"

He motioned to the door and I stood to walk out. I expected nothing less from the King of Hell, yet a part of me was hoping for a different outcome.

Nearly every seat in the shop was filled at noon. It wasn't something I was ready for—I hadn't known that the shop was that successful. When Crowley had said he was low on staff, I had no idea what he meant. There were _ workers.

Dean was a college drop-out looking for a shoddy apartment at a low cost and trying to make a living for himself. Jo and Anna were together, having met in one of their classes at the local college. Jo was majoring in Comparative Literature, and Anna in General English, hoping to become a teacher once she graduated. Sam was a lawyer who enjoyed working in the shop as a side-job. Charlie had quit her last job at a bookstore at the realization that she was going to be fired soon due to lack of funds. She had a girlfriend in one of outlying towns a few minutes away, and I knew they were cute together because of how fondly Charlie spoke about her.

And then there was Adam.

His parents had kicked him out at eighteen, left him on his ass to fend for himself. Dean found him and picked him up off the streets while he was in the middle of getting his ass kicked by another homeless kid. Their relationship wasn't the best, but there was a sort of brotherly bond between them that they didn't deny. He had two jobs to help Dean pay for rent.

Adam was the one who originally prompted me to tear myself apart. I didn't just want a human life. I wanted a human life _with him_. We met when he was a few years younger, at a park just outside the very city that the shop was in. He was sitting on a bench, waiting for his girlfriend to meet him. I sat with him for an hour until she showed up. And then when that hour was up, I waited with him for another. And another. And then we both realized that she wasn't coming.

I heard about it on the news a few days later—a twenty year old woman was hit by a truck while she was running in the direction of the park. At first I wasn't sure that it was her, but a quick walk by Adam's house and my suspicions were proven correct (I was never going to tell him, but I could hear him sobbing through the paper-thing walls of his home).

I sucked in a breath as I finally convinced myself to go over to him. A quick tap on his shoulder sent him whirling around to face me and I smiled easily at him. He looked at me in confusion for a moment before his face lit up in recognition.

"I know you!" he said excitedly. "You're...Samangral, right?"

"Samandriel, but, close enough. Honestly, I wasn't really expecting you to remember me," I confessed. I thought he was going to take one look at me and re-introduce himself, having forgotten those few hours we spent together all those years ago.

"Yeah, of course I remember you. You were with me while I was waiting for Tessa to show up..." his voice trailed off as the event burned into his mind once again.

(Three weeks later, I learned that Tessa was a reaper, but I wasn't going to tell him that in the chance that his ego could have been bruised and he could have been left extremely upset at the thought of his girlfriend faking her own death)

Adam absentmindedly drummed his fingertips along the counter and I listened to the sound closely before he seemed to remember that I was standing in front of him. His eyes lit up once again, and I knew I was never going to get tired of watching his different facial expressions. "So, you work here now?" There was a sort of lilt to his voice and I wasn't able to tell if he was happy or upset, or just disinterested.

Before I could figure it out, Dean barked something at Adam, and the darker blonde grabbed me and shoved me towards Dean, throwing his arm around my shoulders.

"Dean! This is my friend, Samandriel. He works here now!" Adam said proudly.

"Actually, I don't use those pronouns," I told them quietly. Both looked at me in confusion.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"Well, so, there's this thing called the gender binary, and that includes, like, male and female. But then you get into the non-binary genders, which are genders that aren't male or female, like gender-fluid or agender. So, well, I'm agender, and so I don't use the he-his pronoun set. My pronouns are ey, eir, em, eirself. You would use them basically the way you use they-their pronouns, except without the 'th'."

"Why do I need to use those? There's no way I'll be able to remember them," Dean said gruffly.

Jo came up from behind him and whipped his shoulder with a towel. "Dean! Don't be such an ass. If he wants you to use certain pronouns for him, then do it. You gotta have respect for everyone, or else Crowley's pup is gonna have your ass," she told him. She looked to me with a bright smile. "My cousin's gender-fluid, I totally get the whole agender thing. Just make sure you tell the whole staff so we don't misgender you. And don't feel bad if you have to correct us! Crowley's big about us respecting other people, especially when it comes to sexual, romantic, and gender orientation."

The information calmed my nerves a bit and I thanked her. Dean turned back to me, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry if I sounded like a jackass. I just don't get that kinda stuff. But I'll be sure to call you as you wanna be called."

Crowley came into sight behind Dean and the older man turned around to face the king. "I heard you were being a disrespectful ass to Samandriel."

"If you listened to the whole conversation instead of just bits and pieces, you'd know that whatever you heard was out of context," Charlie chimed in. "He was an ass at first, but he's fine now."

Crowley's face darkened a bit, shadows crossing over to make him look that much more terrifying. "Good. Because if you act out I'll kill you."

Anyone was able to see Dean as a tough man, not taking anyone's shit and not being afraid of anything. But when Crowley's face darkened and his voice deepened threateningly, I was able to see that it took Dean a lot to keep still and not squirm under the demon's gaze.

The day was winding down. There were only a few customers left, though their plates were emptying quickly. My eyes went to the clock for the tenth time in the past thirty minutes. I played with the apron that was tied around my waste, a sort of welcoming gift from Crowley that he gave to me an hour after I started my first shift.

Charlie danced lightly around the shop, refilling a few drinks and then swaying her hips on her way back to the counter. Jo laughed heartily at her, beginning into a conversation to poke fun at her dance moves. Anna chimed in quickly and the three started into a conversation that consisted more of laughter and inside jokes than actual words.

Adam snuck up behind me, poking one shoulder and showing up on the other side. I smiled at him and muttered an anxious, "Hey."

"We should hang out one day. Give me your phone?" I handed him my phone without question, watching as he began punching in his number to save it into my contacts. He handed his phone to me and I mimicked his actions until we were both finished and had our phones returned to each other.

"Sounds like a plan," I said, internally screaming at how lame I was.

"Yeah," he agreed. He shot a glance to the clock. "Hey, I'm actually going to clock out now. Text me or something, yeah?"

I nodded with a blank stare, trying so hard to find the right words to say—a simple goodbye, something simple. My mouth opened just as he turned and walked away, yet no words came out.

Sam looked at me with a sort of knowing smile and walked up to me, nudging my side with his elbow. "You're falling so hard."

"What?!" I practically shouted. "No—you're getting the wrong idea, I swear!"

"I think I'm getting the right idea. You're just too embarrassed to admit it," he said.

"Moose! Get over here, I need help," Crowley shouted from the other side of the shop. Sam smiled at me once again before going to help Crowley.

His words rolled around in my head. When I finally went to my small apartment, the words were haunting me even more. They screamed at the highest pitch, leaving me lying awake through the night. My hand would find my phone under my pillow, beginning to type out a text message, yet erasing it once I realized I had nothing intelligent to say.

I wasn't _falling_ for him.

I _already_ fell for him.


	3. Chapter 2

Hi! So I was going to upload a new chapter, but I somehow lost it?

Anyway, I wanted to let everyone reading this to know that I take fanfiction commissions! If you visit my tumblr page ( .com) it has more information and how to submit a fanfic request.

Anyway, the second chapter will hopefully be up soon once I re-write it!


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